someone else's love story
by hapsby
Summary: Sometimes love is a little more complex than "happily ever after." Jounouchi/Kaiba.


**someone else's love story**  
-hapsby

**1. counting crows - "daylight fading"**  
_moonlight creeping around the corner of our lawn,  
and when we see the early sign of daylight fading, we leave just before it's gone._

Kaiba's good at pretty much everything, and he's a genius, and he knows akido, and he never loses any game he plays except for the ones he plays with Yuugi. He's not the best kisser, though, and Jounouchi is secretly thrilled, because he can tell it's only because he's never had any experience. It makes him sickly satisfied to know that, for the first time since they met, Jounouchi has the upper hand with Kaiba.

When he takes him to bed, Kaiba isn't shy, just clumsy, and with his trademark surliness. They lay there, after it's over, in the smoky darkness. Jounouchi talks just to hear himself speak. "I wanna leave sometimes," he says, "and go somewhere, anywhere. I couldn't leave Yuugi, but maybe he'd go with me. I'd get an apartment with Shizuka and pay for her to go to school anywhere she wants."

"I don't care." Kaiba's voice is irritating and nasal as always.

Just before daylight, just before Kaiba wakes up, Jounouchi slips out the door. Jounouchi (and he knows Kaiba would agree) has every intention of keeping their great unrelationship secret not only from the world, but from themselves. They have no reason to discuss it, to dissect it, if they don't have to look at each other in the morning.

**2. deadboy and the elephantmen - "the misadventures of dope"**  
_baby's got a fistful of love, yeah she does.  
dancing. and song. my body aches to forget the earth.  
given enough time all things are possible. the astronomical.  
can't you hear me?_

It doesn't even feel like being alive, and somehow Jounouchi's stumbled all broken-tired to Kaiba's doorstep where he just slumps down, just collapses. His bones have melted into his flesh and become soup. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and tries to send Kaiba a mail that says, _open your goddamn door,_ but his fingers slip off the keys.

Meeting Yuugi put a stop to Jounouchi wild days. Peer pressure was no longer an issue, because doing drugs or getting into fights or even smoking cigarettes would disappoint him so much, and who wants to disappoint that little guy? Not Jounouchi. He'd never been loved like that, not by anyone.

But sometimes Jounouchi's just gotta forget things, and maybe what Yuugi doesn't know won't hurt him. Because Jounouchi can hide the bruises on his arms, he can explain away the black eye, and even though his friends don't believe him, they don't press the issue. So he gets all fucked up and nothing makes sense and his body feels like weights wrapped in skin and he just wants to lay down and die now, or sleep forever, or die in his sleep.

He felt like Kaiba's mansion would be a good place for such an activity, so here he is.

**3. the verve pipe - "villians"**  
_another villian on the cover of every major magazine,  
the victim lost somewhere inbetween.  
see how they twist and shout. see how they twist and shout._

Jounouchi's always had a pretty active imagination. When he was a little kid, he saw ghosts in every shadow, heard monsters rattling against the gutters of their apartment. Shizuka was just a little tiny baby, but he imagined she was full of beautiful, pure spirits - fire spirits that made her temperament so sweet and her hair so red.

When he got older, Yuugi would joke that maybe Jounouchi should write fiction. Honda disagreed; said he should just write about his life, about the crazy paths their friendships took. The truth, for them, had always been stranger than fiction, even before Yuugi solved that little golden puzzle two years ago.

So it comes as no surprise (to Jounouchi, at least), that he spends his lonelier evenings - when Anzu's dancing and Yuugi and Bakura are studying and Honda and Otogi are partying and Shizuka's out of town with Mama and Kaiba is god-knows-where - daydreaming lazily, not about ghosts or ancient Egyptian spirits or the glory of victory, but of living a quiet, everyday, normal life.

He pictures Kaiba, sometimes; not the Kaiba he knows but the Kaiba he _pretends_. All half-hidden smiles and conversations over coffee. This Kaiba sits across from Jounouchi in the mornings, reading the newspaper. He comments, lightly, on the villians in the headlines: the Big Five, Pegasus Crawford, Dartz, the crazy broken side of Malik Ishtar, and how they were all taken down and defeated by some plucky gang of teenagers Jounouchi's never met.

And Jounouchi lights a cigarette, sprinkles sugar over his coffee, and says, "They're lucky. Adventure is good for the soul."

Kaiba scoffs and casts the newspaper aside, something akin to warmth in his blue eyes.

**4. sunny day real estate - "seven"**  
_sew it on. face the fool.  
december's tragic drive, when time is poetry.  
and, stolen, the world outside.  
the waiting could crush my heart._

Jounouchi always figured Kaiba would drive like a maniac, but he doesn't. He drives with the same sort of strategic brilliance that he shows in every other aspect of his life. Jounouchi sits in the passenger seat, a lit cigarette dangling from his lips, the window cracked just enough to let the smoke escape. When they spend time together, Jounouchi wonders if Kaiba sews on a perfect little mask of indifference and uncaring; his words are harsh and his actions are cruel, yet here they are, driving aimlessly down the winter-white streets of Domino.

The blond's hand slides over, only somewhat nervously, and clasps Kaiba's thigh. He shows no reaction, not even in his eyes, and Jounouchi wonders if he'll ever know what to say to him. It was easier when they did nothing but argue. Jounouchi understands being angry with Kaiba. He doesn't quite understand this.

"If I could find the right words to say..." Jounouchi begins, but Kaiba's lips twist in annoyance.

"Shut up," he says. "I told you before... this isn't me."

"Then why are we doing this?" Jounouchi can't mask the anger in his voice. He never could. But he likes feeling angry with Kaiba, because it feels so much more normal than the weird fluttering in his heart that Kaiba occasionally inspires.

Kaiba doesn't answer, and Jounouchi's pretty sure he never will.

The snow is a pretty, sweet little blanket over the city. Jounouchi wants to go home so that he can brew some coffee, read the newspaper, and pretend he lives someone else's love story, but Kaiba just keeps driving without a word.

**fin.**

**Notes:** This was from a writing prompt that I'm sure we've all seen floating around. You know, the one where you set your playlist to shuffle and write a drabble for the first four songs that come up. You only get to write each drabble for the duration of its corresponding song, and you're only allowed to fix grammatical or spelling errors afterward. I wish I had had a little longer to write the drabble for "Villians" - if I wasn't able to make it clear, Jounouchi completely imagined the conversation he was having with Kaiba.


End file.
